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mikejuk writes "A team from Microsoft Research has taken the lead in the MinuteSort data sorting test using a specially-devised technology: Flat DataCenter Storage. The figures are impressive — 1401 gigabytes in 60 seconds, using 1033 disks across 250 machines. Not only is this three times as much as the previous record, but also, it uses only one sixth of the hardware resources, according to a blog post about the test from Microsoft. One thing that's interesting about the success is the technology used. While solutions such as Hadoop and MapReduce are traditionally used for working with large data sets, Microsoft Research created its own technology called the 'Flat Datacenter Storage,' or FDS for short. This isn't just academic research, of course. The team from Microsoft Research has already been working with the Bing team to help Bing accelerate its search results, and there are plans to use it in other Microsoft technologies."

And these are exact, high-profile products that have come out of Microsoft Research. You have to remember that they work on many smaller things that will be then integrated into other Microsoft products, or do work 'just for science' (which is pretty amazing from Microsoft).

First of all tons of companies fund research. Lots of papers come out of them of all kinds and plenty more that is never published.

Second of all Microsoft is actually known for being a black hole of research. Researchers go in and almost nothing comes out. They hire people just so their competitors can't hire them. They may do a few demos but nothing commercial comes from them.